Virus’ surge helps Moderna fill test ranks
Moderna’s highly regarded COVID-19 vaccine has just hit a major threshold.
The surge in coronavirus cases across Moderna vaccine trial sites in the U.S. will now allow the Cambridgebased company to complete the analysis of its mRNA vaccine candidate.
The development, announced Wednesday, means more information on the vaccine will soon become available.
“Moderna has seen a significant increase in the rate of case identification across sites in the last week. As a result, the Company expects the first interim analysis will include substantially more than 53 cases, the targeted trigger point for the analysis,” the company said.
The data on at least 53 cases is being submitted to the independent Data Safety Monitoring Board for analysis and recommendation, according to Moderna.
All participants in the study have either received the vaccine or a placebo shot, however neither the participants nor Moderna knows which one.
The primary goal of the vaccine is to prevent symptomatic coronavirus. The secondary goals are prevention of severe COVID-19 and prevention of infection by SARS-CoV-2.
The current Phase 3 study was designed to evaluate people at the highest risk of severe COVID-19 disease and included more than 7,000 participants over the age of 65.
The study included more than 5,000 Americans who are under the age of 65, but are at high risk due to chronic diseases.
It also included more than 11,000 participants from communities of color. The study is running in more than 100 test sites across the country including Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Moderna stock on Wednesday started trading at $76.24 and ended the day at $82.44. After hours trading continued to climb to $84.00.
Moderna, based in Cambridge, has said it expects to be able to produce about 20 million doses of the vaccine in 2020 and from 500 million up to one billion doses worldwide in 2021.
The company already has orders with several countries across the globe.
Moderna’s announcement comes on the heels of news out of Pfizer on Monday that its vaccine candidate was more than 90% effective in preventing the disease among trial volunteers who had no evidence of prior coronavirus infection.
The development fueled the stock market and initiated a surge of hope and excitement among the medical community and the general public alike.